Whisky Aged 3 Years in Space Returns to Earth

Welcome home, booze.

We can all breathe a sigh of relief. A batch of whisky that was floating in space for the past three years has safely returned home.

The collaboration between NanoRacks, which provides research space on the International Space Station, and Ardbeg Distillery, a scotch whisky maker, had a simple purpose: Ardbeg wanted to see how whisky matured in microgravity. So, they took whisky terpenes (hydrocarbon chains that appear in ethanol) up to space with bits of charred oak mixed in to simulate the maturation process of whisky barrels.

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The vials had been living and aging aboard the ISS since 2011; they were even hanging around when astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded his spirited cover of "Space Oddity." The terpene samples recently made their voyage home, recently making a safe landing in Kazakhstan before being shipped to Texas for testing.

The scientists will compared space-aged whisky to an Earth-based control group to see what, if any, effect the microgravity environment had on the terpenes. Bill Lumsden, the Scottish distillery's scientist-in-residence, plans to publish the results soon. The research could be the groundwork for the distilleries of the future. Or perhaps it could prove that whisky brewing in microgravity is unfeasible—much to the chagrin of future space explorers hoping to take the edge off a long Mars flight.